An Unseemly Craving
by Archaeobee
Summary: Norrington and Beckett had met long before that moment, and they had been more than casual shipmates. The memory haunts them both. JNCB, ONESHOT, some DMC spoilers.


_An Unseemly Craving_

By Dream Descends

"What do you want from me, Cutler?"

James knew they were the wrong words, almost before Beckett looked at him—really _looked_ at him, this time, too, not the offhand stare concentrated just above the former commodore's filthy shoulder, as though merely meeting the man's gaze might inflict ill fortune and failure. In Cutler Beckett's world (which soon, it seemed, would be everyone else's as well), poverty was a disease, one he had allegedly become immune to.

But now, the steely grey irises, bright like bullets, were fixed on him, intense as any flame on flesh, roiling with the black bud of power—_lust_.

"A question posed to me quite often these days, it seems," the man responded, avoiding a true answer. He stood from the makeshift throne behind James' erstwhile desk and approached him, shoulders neatly squared and hands hidden. James was a good six inches taller than he, a fact that was either unnoticed or proved insignificant as Beckett faced him directly.

"And it's lord now." His bow-shaped, almost feminine lips twitched at the corners. "_Lord_ Cutler Beckett."

James smiled humourlessly, raising a rude eyebrow. "If you're playing that sort of game, I've been known to respond well to 'Vice Admiral'."

The slight tilt of Beckett's head, irritating and familiar, told James he was being evaluated. On what grounds, he didn't know, and preferred it that way. Whatever sick calculations were passing through _Lord Cutler's_ mind at the moment, he was quite content remaining oblivious to them.

"What I want from you, Vice Admiral," Beckett started, all business after a moment of silent contemplation, "Is loyalty." He had begun to walk towards the open doors that lead to the terrace, but now stopped and glanced back at the sweat-stained man behind him. "And partnership," he added softly, the dry laughter of memory in his voice like a hard slap.

Beyond Beckett's offices, Port Royal was being rebuilt. It had been another earthquake this time, not nearly as devastating as the last, but rather conveniently middle-sized, summoning the wealthy visionaries of rebirth and revolution to bring the tired city up from the ashes. Beckett cast a lazily curious eye on the activity, his egotistical ghost of a smile surprisingly offensive to James, who watched the town he knew vanish under new brick and mortar.

For the first time in months, he felt some kind of compassion, for the people and places this strange idea called the future was flattening in its eager stampede to arrive.

"You remain silent, old friend," Beckett observed, feigning ignorance. "Out of indifference, or—"

"Vice Admiral," James corrected automatically, wincing in displeasure. "We can hardly be _old_ friends if we were never friends at all."

For a brief, if gloriously enjoyable moment, the look of smug intellect on Beckett's face withered. "I see." He seemed about to turn away, but then spurred backward and hit James with the full force of his stare. "What would you have me call it, then?" His tone was frigid and riddled with too many shadowy undertones to maintain a level of cautious relaxation.

James swallowed. "A mistake," he murmured hoarsely, decisively, refusing to look at the man he wished he hadn't ever known, who had plagued his dreams on more than one occasion, and who would have him ignore the enormous weighty cloud of the past hanging over them both.

The vicious, feral energy in the following quiet was almost overpowering. Beckett's small, nimble fingers played several times over the un-sanded railing before coming to rest uneasily at his sides.

Then, as though a machine inside him had been abruptly repaired, the man clasped his wrist behind his back and was present once again. "Loyalty," he repeated loudly, strolling back inside with James in tow. "A trait misused in a place so far from England's ruling hand." He smiled curtly at James. "What alliances you may have left with England and the king cannot find you a reprieve now. I can give you something far more valuable—something far more _tangible_."

"Pray continue," James said, unmoved. The answer to something Cutler Beckett said was usually best off being a resolute and resounding '_no_'.

"I will not beat around the bush, so to speak, James." A hand absently was placed on that damned wooden chest, concealing almost completely the insignia of the East India Trading Company. "The heart of Davy Jones. I want it."

To say James was caught off guard would have been a gross understatement. "Superstition," he blurted out quickly, and contradicted himself almost immediately in his head. _Like cursed Aztec gold,_ he thought discomfortingly, _and the collective abilities of Jack Sparrow_.

Even as the explanation was readily laid out before him, aforementioned _Jack Sparrow _unfortunately present in most of it, he was paying more attention to the muddled filing of his mind's collected tales on the great black locker and a man with the supremacy of the sea. He thought of Beckett and this ultimate authority that figures from his past had told him was too great and terrible for a mere able seaman or petty officer to understand. He thought long after the man had fallen silent and was watching him, eyes ablaze, teeming with a monstrous craving that made him seize the material of his jacket in exasperation and desire.

The resemblance stole James' breath away, so certain was he for a moment that this was the young midshipman crouching in the shadows below deck, waiting for James to finish his watch and reach down a hot hand in inquiry.

Theonce-commodore turned and headed for the door, a bright flush spreading across the upper half of his body.

"You'll come around, James Norrington," Beckett said to his retreating back, the relentless arrogance in his voice softened by the shuffle of parchment as the man moved on to other business. "I'll be here, when you do."

"Damned if I will," James replied out of earshot, knowing perfectly well that the nickname Vice Admiral had been far too attractive for him to curse in certainty.

FIN


End file.
